Church Tour and More!

So the way the Austrian school system works, is if a teacher is missing, class just gets cancelled rather than getting a substitute. I also don't have to go to Latin or French class here, so I have a pretty open schedule. On Wednesday, by Ethics class was cancelled, so I got out of school at 10 am. I decided to take advantage of that, and of the excellent "Vienna's Best Churches" book I got for Christmas, and I organized an adventure. I picked out some of my favorite churches from the book, mapped out a route, and headed out with my camera in hand. It was fun to be a tourist again and to really enjoy the city of Vienna! I explored a part of the city that I haven't been to in a while, and indulged in a little window shopping. I really enjoyed the solitude of the churches, and how different they all were. The weather was kind of acting like the weather in Colorado normally does, and it changed about every 10 minutes. I would walk into one church in the pouring rain and come out to a snow storm! The sun even decided to grace the city of Vienna with it's presence, which was a gift all its own! It's been a pretty dark and cloudy winter and to feel the actual warmth of the sun on my face was pretty delightful! It is starting to come out more often and lasting longer, which means spring is finally coming! I am definitely looking forward to a little more Vitamin D! Anyways, I ended my day in a typical Viennese cafe with the best hot coacoa I've ever had! Overall it was an excellent day!

Not a church, but just one of my everyday views!

This alter is entirely made of wood

Everyone in Crested Butte is on school break this week so I've been Skype-ing with a lot of my friends lately. That makes me very happy and sad at the same time, and I think I need to seperate myself from that media for a while! I miss them all very much, but at the same time I am not feeling ready to go back to that yet! I've got 17 weeks from Monday until I fly home, and when you put it that way it doesn't seem too long! I'm really looking forward to everything I've got coming up in those weeks and hopefully making the most of every day like I did on Wednesday! My German course ended today so now I'm going to have some more free time! I will continue studying German though, and in May I am going to take a test to see if my German is proficient enough to study at the university here. Just to keep that option open, and to have that certified German that counts for credit in America!

As it starts to warm up I hope to start running again and maybe test out how my foot is doing. I also am considering taking a cooking or baking course, and I might start teaching a friend in my class guitar! Just a few things to fill up the free time! I wanted to send out a quick thank you for all the birthday cards and gifts! Grandma and Grandpa sent me a card with a bunch of pictures from me growing up, and my host family really enjoyed looking at those! Karleigh also sent a very loving card and I'm waiting to read the others on my real birthday! Almost 17 years old! Woohoo!

Sick again!

Man, I swear I have been sick more often in my 6 months here in Austria than at least the last two years combined! I had kind of been feeling a head cold all last week, but by Friday it really hit me. It didn't help that my German teacher was late for class (as usual) and we had to stand in the cold waiting for an hour. So when I got home Friday night, I crashed and didn't really move the whole weekend. That was a bummer becuase for one being sick in simply no fun. And I was invited to two birthday parties that weekend and couldn't make either of them! I was also invited to meet one of our 'newbies' (the exchange students come every six months, so I am now an 'oldie' and those who came in January are 'newbies'.) But I also had to turn that down becuase I couldn't get out of bed! Babsi and Niki took excellent care of me though, even setting up a mattress for me on the floor so things would be easier than up on my loft bed. After many remedies and some TLC, I finally went back to school today. My nose ran all day and I sneezed and coughed in a constant precession, and I think my whole class is afraid of me now! But hopefully I'll be better by this weekend! My 17th birthday is coming up, and on Saturday one of my really good exchange friends that lives in Graz, named Laura is coming to stay with me! We are also celebrating two other exchange students' birthdays this weekend, so it should be really fun! I also am going out to a cafe with a few girls from my class, and then having a small family dinner on my actual birthday on Monday! I got a package yesterday from home, and I am really really really excited to read the letters I got! I may have accidentally already read the one from Karleigh! But that is something I have definitely learned to appreciate during this exchange. Nothing makes me happier than reading and writing letters home, it's such an old art that isn't appreciated any more! I also realized the other day  that this exchange has made me so grateful for the love I recieve back home. I am incredibly loved and cared for over here, but the culture is different, and hugs are rare. I have one Austrian friend who hugs me every day just because I told her I miss them! Otherwise, I don't really get hugs until I see other exchange students. I literally have been having ten second dreams lately where I just get a solid hug from a random person. I'm definitely looking forward to getting some real ones soon!
Easter is coming up! Not really but in Austria they like to prepare for the big holidays early! So the decorations are starting to appear around the house! Here's a picture of my favorite, the 'Egg Tree' has fresh buds about to blossom, and eggs decorated from my host siblings and Babsi. She showed me every single one last night and explained all the memories to me. I can't wait to paint one of my own and hang it up there too!

Skifahren

I haven't posted in a while because I've been busy skiing in the mountains! My school had semster break this last week, and Theresa, Babsi and I (Niki had to work) drove to the house in Kirchberg on Friday afternoon. Once again, it felt awesome to be back in the mountains, and I was excited to ski some of the fresh powder that had been dumping from the sky! It was basically the same routine every day: Wake up at 8 to an excellent breakfast. Dress from head to toe in ski gear and apparel based on the weather, rush downstairs to gather our skis and boots and then run to catch the bus up to the gondola. Most of the days it was either snowing, or had snowed the night before, and I enjoyed plenty of powder! We always ate lunch in a mountain hut and I tried typical Tirolean (Tirol is the state in Austria) dishes. Then we skied directly back to the house and spent the afternoon relaxing and taking baths. Every night dinner was a special occasion and we had several dinners with friends. Then we would finally retire to bed with the currents of the river that lays next to the house creating a soft lullaby. In that order, the days flew by quicker than I would have liked! I met up a few times with another exchange student from French Candada who was also staying in Kirchberg. We skied with some of her school friends, and I was glad to make even more Austrian friends that I can ski with again when we go back in March. Niki took the train out to ski on Saturday and Sunday with us. On Sunday, Theresa and Babsi packed up the house and loaded the car ready to drive back to Vienna, and Niki and I went skiing. He likes powder snow just as much as I do and we spent the whole day hunting out the last patches of white fluff we could find. We ended up having a fantastic day that wasn't too exhausting because the snow was really light. We ended the day on a run that didn't require much skill (it was actually a snowed over road I think) but the scenery was beautiful. We went from the top of the mountain to the bottom following snaking river curves. There were ice falls and still running water falls that were sparkling in the sunlight. Everything was still coated in snow, and I just had a really peaceful moment to reflect on how fortunate I am. Going into this exchange program, I thought I wanted to go to a Spanish speaking country and maybe spend the year on a beach. But for some reason I made the spontaneous decision that Austria was the place for me. A lot of the time I ask myself, "What the heck was I thinking?" I hadn't heard German before in my life. I wanted to get away from the snow... But everything about Austria these past six months has been completely meant to be. I can't explain it, but I know that every moment I'm here, it is where I am meant to be. And in that moment skiing I couldn't help but smile at the magic of it all. The perfection in the details.

View from the lift

Church on the ski run

Being in Austria, I try and make an effort to visit as many places within Austria as possible. I really wanted to see Innsbruck, but it is a pretty pricey train ticket from Vienna. But Kirchberg is only about an hour train ride away, so I decided this was probably my only opportunity to go explore Innsbruck a little. So I hoppped on a train Saturday morning and called an exchange friend that lives there. Unfortunately, she was skiing with her host family and couldn't make it into town to see me. But it made it that much more of an adventure! I had no idea where I was going, so the second I stepped off the train I just started wandering. I ended up sort of on the wrong side of town, and was feeling a little sketched out for a while. BUT then I discovered this beautiful church with a massive graveyard. I walked around the cemetery for about an hour doing a lot of thinking. I find it really interesting to read the dates on the gravestones, and here in Austria they date back pretty far. I think it's really amazing that the same family dating back to the late 1700's all lies together. After I left the cemetery I spotted a pack of tourists (the cameras slinged around their necks gave them away) and I decided to follow them. On my walk into dowtown Innsbruck, the clouds began to lift and revealed the massive Alps prodtruding from every possible direction. I was in awe as a whole new beauty was added to this city. I was again surprised by how cute inner Innsbruck actually is. I've heard stories, but man this city is like a fairy tale. Cute cobblestone roads curve in an unorganized fashion throughout the city. Just like in Vienna, the streets are buzzing with vendors, tourists, and entertainers. But unlike Vienna., almost every building in Innsbruck was a different color and some were quite elaboratly painted. I explored every curve of the tiny streets and ended up at a really nice cafe. There I treated myself to a much needed cup of coffee and a slice of cake. I was making my way back to the train station when I coincidentally ran into two other exchange students, Rebecca and Celeste. Rebecca lives near Innsbruck and Celeste was spending the holidays with her, so they were doing a little touring of the inner city as well! I decided to take a later train back and spend a little time catching up with my friends. I got a more official tour of the city from Rebecca and we laughed a lot together! It was so good to see some exchange students again, and it made me really excited to see them all in March for our ski trip in Schladming. Leaving Innsbruck was slightly heart breaking, and I found myself again thinking of ways I could live somewhere like that. Leaving the mountains in general was rather difficult this time, and I was less than excited to be back in school today. But I really don't have that long before I go skiing with the exchange students, and then fly off to Sweden two weeks later! I celebrated my 6 month anniversary with Austria recently, and feeling pretty great about it! I've got so much to look forward to in the coming four and a half months that I am trying to make sure I can fit it all in!

The view from my departing train

 

Church in Innsbruck with famous ski jump in background

Innsbruck

Snowfall in Kirchberg

Dowtown Innsbruck

Innbruck's famous Golden Roof